Tainted Mirrors
by ThePsychoVamp
Summary: Between Eclipse and BD. AU. After a careless decision on Jacob's part, the Quileute pack begins to see the cracks in their apparently majestic glory. Simultaneously, a friendship roots in the consequences of Jacob's mistake and the vastness of Edward Cullen's unquestionable need for help.


**A.N.: Happy birthday, Chloe!**

**()**

"_Doublethink _means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them."

– George Orwell, _1984_

**()**

Edward didn't scream.

For the toughest of humans, it would be considered an impressive feat. Edward didn't scream, but his leg did, a dozen organ pipes tunneling through every single bone of his right leg and making it vibrate, infrasounds seemingly spreading through the solidness of the member. They reached his head, too, accumulating into a drawn-out, low-pitched note, solemn and ominous, and his brain was turned into boiling mush. _Boiling_. It seemed as if the icy matter inside had melted – something too hot too close –, and the temperature of what had remained rose and rose and rose. Something boiled under his skin. Behind his closed eyelids, images wavered, shaped like crackling flames. A blurry ceiling and a pale hand. And fire – although that was just a word caught up in a whirlwind of confusion and supplications. Blood bubbling so ostentatiously that it created tears in his veins. It'd happened more than eighty years before, and Edward thought he'd screamed then, because at the time there had only been fear of the unknown.

He didn't scream now – this time he was conscious of his surroundings. La Push, in the state of Washington. Amongst evergreen trees and broken trunks, scattered over forest soil, through which nutrients leached. His fingers dug into that same soil, softened and watered by the rain that had fallen just hours before. A familiar kind of burning in his nostrils, a grumbling sound shared by the lungs of five large creatures, and a set of heartbeats so majestically loud that they pulsated through his already throbbing head, made him aware of the presence of a group of beings whose thoughts – when it came to him – were tinted by a pair of bodeful colors, black and electric crimson.

But it wasn't embarrassment that kept him quiet.

Whereas eighty-eight years before his mind had been devoured by an avalanche of agony, now it was hit by a startling memory. Muddy, like the rest of his human memories, but not so much that he couldn't describe it. And this one had a forewarning tone behind it, summoned an instinct that was common to both humans and vampires. It wasn't fear of the unknown, but a guilt-tinged fear. Of something vague, albeit predictably unpleasant. Edward had been told _several_ times not to run in the house. His seven-year old mind hadn't been able to understand _why, _since most rooms were considerably spacious, his balance was just _fine, _and even the corridor carpet, whose margins were the residence of multiple wooden doors, looked like a great running lane. There was a window at the end of that corridor, separating his comfortable dimension, warmed by the flames that crepitated in the fireplace in his father's office, from the outward world. A rather large window, he thought, in front of which the branches of the naked plane tree that faced the main street of the residential area served as beds for thick layers of snow. His morning run was interrupted by the whining of a heavy door. Edward came to a halt, breathless and red-faced, his green eyes level with his father's golden clock chain.

The sight was unexpected, and the halt, sudden. Edward inhaled sharply through his teeth, and the sound initiated a succession of unsteady heart beats within his ribcage. The clock chain disappeared below his field of vision. Tartan waistcoat. Black tie. A pair of blue eyes, round islands surrounded by a white sea, corrupted by red branched lines. A heavy hand fell on his small shoulder.

"Have you been running?"

His heart inflated now and shrunk then a trifle too fast, and there was an odd feeling in the pit of his stomach, like an ice cube had been dropped into it. Edward thought it would be wise to answer "No, Sir", even if, by doing so, he wasn't telling the truth.

A tendril of guilt embraced his sternum. The hand on his shoulder tightened its hold on the fragile bones.

"Don't lie to me."

Edward wanted to say he _hadn't _been running_, _not exactly; he'd just been walking a bit too fast. But he also wanted to tell the truth, soften it with the assurance that he was always careful. But the down-turned lines carved around his father's mouth, extensions of his hard-pressed lips, and the threatening flashing of his eyes stopped him cold. His breathing picked up, and his father's shoulder rose up like an angry wave, and–

It was the opposite of a thunderclap. The sound – a loud, dry _paft _– came first. The pain came later, hot and malevolent. It spread across his right cheek and flipped it like an earthquake, and young Edward imagined that it didn't exist at all, that there was only an undefinable, vibrating ache in its place. His throat tightened around an intangible rock, and tears sprang to his eyes. 

"Don't cry!" his father shouted, and the blurry panorama made the ice in the pit of his stomach crack. Edward Senior's large hands took hold of his trembling shoulders, and suddenly he was thrown off balance, then brought back to his original stance, pushed and pulled, and it happened twice, thrice, four times, too fast for him to understand what was really happening, and by the end of it, his brain was ricocheting off the rounded walls of his skull. His throat felt achier now, and his eyelashes were wet. "Don't cry!"

His father shook him again. This time Edward paid heed to his words, the warning in his voice, and the sob that had been building up in his gullet was pushed down with a big gulf of air, which he held within his suddenly still chest. It pressed down on the escalating hiccups but let one or two escape, curt, strangled sounds that he couldn't help freeing.

_Don't cry._

Those were timeless words.

Edward parted his lips, seeing his own dark mouth open wider and form a horrified 'o' in the wolf's gleaming mind. It didn't happen, of course. His mouth hadn't opened more than an inch before he clamped it shut, his teeth grit firmly. A warm draft had slithered into it, and as it slipped past his vocal cords, he heard a low, thin noise. The wolf's eyes flashed in alarm, his thoughts swirling around red flags but covered in a soft sheet of fine purple silk – there was a strong feeling of pride in his head, Edward understood vaguely, but there was also insecurity, detached from the former emotion. _You're not gonna scream, bloodsucker, are you? _Edward _wanted _to, the air in his chest joining the boiling sensation within his body. Brewing a cacophony as tempestuous as the howls of the organ pipes, still ringing. (God, it _hurt._) Instead, his fingers dug deeper into the earth, clinging pathetically to the roots of a fern and the rhizoids of the moss that covered the ground. Jacob, the wolf, eyed him threateningly, shushed him with his large brown eyes, before stepping back and taking a look at his work of _art_.

Mentally – and despite himself –, Jacob winced. The direction that the lower part of the leech's leg had taken formed an angle… _No_. Jacob didn't think there was an angle at all. Just two different routes under the same tunnel, the torn fabric of the bloodsucker's fancy jeans. The pale skin underneath the tears had been scratched – Jacob had heard the metallic screech created by his scraping his claws against non-human flesh –, and although (or perhaps _because_) it wasn't nearly as bad an injury as the broken leg, Jacob felt satisfied when he saw the marks. But the arched shape of the leech's back and the badly concealed horror in Cullen's coaly eyes pushed his paws backwards. His gaze drifted down to that ungodly–to the fractured leg, before being brought up again.

Was the monster _afraid_?

The irony forced a huff out of his animal mouth, what'd have been a chuckle were he in his human form. He imagined what Bella would think if she were there, standing beside her _perfect_ bloodsucker, her _so-adored_ god lying at her feet, helpless. Perhaps she'd take that crazy idea out of her head – she wouldn't suddenly become indestructible if she turned into one of _them, _because _they _could be reduced to this very easily. And _they _were nothing but vincible, lust-driven monsters.

(Monsters that could feel afraid.)

Jacob stalled, no trace of amusement in his mind. His stare had gone back to the agonized face of his enemy, the clenched jaws and the…eyes.

Wherein he saw a fearful, unexplainable apology, like the honest, regretful look of a frightened child.

"Jesus." Seth appeared at his side. His voice took on an almost effeminate quality, a few tones higher than usual. "Jesus. Fuck. _Fuck. _What have you done to him?"

This was his duty, he wanted to reply, but Seth had morphed back into his human form, and the mental connection had been cut off. His pack mate kneeled beside the twisted, motionless figure of _the thing_, his youthful face set in a displeased grimace while he examined Cullen's right leg visually, like he was _worried_.

_Like they were friends_.

Jacob's muzzle moved as he tried to get rid of the bitter taste in his mouth, and with his tongue pressed against a long, sharp canine, he watched Leah's hind legs falter slightly. A curious question on her mind, hidden behind the relief of seeing her brother out of harm's way. She shifted her sharp gaze to Jacob's paws, and a loud snapping sound echoed in her head.

She'd seen it through his mind.

But of course – everyone had.

Leah rushed off to meet the others, who had managed to cage the nomadic newborn in a tight circle, while Jacob phased back.

"Why did you do that?"

Seth's grimace stung and stamped his mind like a fresh tattoo.

Jacob bent down and untangled his denim shorts from his ankle, the familiar sound of vampire flesh being torn to shreds reaching his ears in the form of enthusiastic clapping. The flavor of a hunt was always sweet. In a sense, sickeningly sweet; in another, cool and relieving and so damn satisfying. This had been a lost hunt, but Jacob found its substitute to be much more _satiating_ than the casual leech chase. The smell of death was a blunt fingernail scraping the curves of his nostrils.

"We have rules, Seth. He's in our territory," he said, and with a repulsed look sent Cullen's way, he added, "In fact, he should've gone back to Leech Den already."

"Sam gave him permission to cross the border," Seth protested. "You know he did, and you decided to attack him anyway. Hey, you okay?"

The weight of Cullen's torso was poised on his right forearm, his black gaze fixed on the split extension of his leg. Jacob stopped his reflection-wince before it could stretch too far.

"I'm fine," Cullen said, voice reduced to a reticent murmur, eyes eclipsed by white blinds and black brushes, and Jacob thought it was a strange arrangement. It could only be the eyelashes. Too damn thick and long and dark and _unreal_. Everything connected to their kind was offensive in its sheer bizarreness. Human-looking things that were obviously not human, and _yet – _yet, from their white-washed, immaculate faces suffering could transpire. And Jacob saw in the narrowed gap between his eyebrows and the tightening of his mouth that the leech was lying.

_How cute, Cullen. Heroism almost looks good on you. _

"Edward." Sam's bass voice alerted Jacob to the presence of his leader. His muscles stiffened, touched by instinct alone. A growing tension settled in the air between them.

_Right. _It was easy to forget that bloodsuckers had names, too. He tried not to think of _his – sounded so, so wrong when Bella said it – _whenever he got too deeply immersed in his mental wanderings.

"Thank you for trying to help us."

Cullen gave him a slight, curt nod in response, and Jacob felt a recent bitterness in the back of his head morphing into simmering anger.

"We didn't need help," he said, and his voice sounded simultaneously grave and youthful, the momentary wrath that he so often wore without an overcoat on top, sewn with external calmness, weighing on his words like lead.

In fact, they hadn't needed help.

Up until now Edward hadn't considered his opportunism a bad trait; in this case, it went hand in hand with his aversion to violence. (And, ironically enough, he saw the opportunity within a violent situation.) He was not the leader of the Olympic coven, didn't in any way consider himself fit for the role, but for all intents and purposes he was their spokesperson and saw it as his duty to establish an alliance (non-alliance, non-aggressive relation, whatever someone who liked to be more exact would define it as) with other groups. Because alliances often implied being against _another_ group of allies, and that was a matter that he didn't want to involve in this particular plan. His main aim was to declare _non-war_.

Truce – that was the word. But clearly it'd been emptied of meaning long ago, and the presentiment that it was nearing its extinction had been screeching against the sharpest edges of Edward's consciousness for a while now. Renewing the intangible, informal, perhaps even petty, contract for no other reason than the fact that this generation hadn't been present back when the words of agreement had been exchanged was not enough. And neither was reforming it. There needed to be a bond, however subtle it might be. No matter how apparently useless it might be. As long as it was solid, consistent and sufficiently amicable, Edward was happy to partake in a trade of favors, a give-and-take put in practice in the name of peace. Because Bella hadn't shown any signs of feeling anything less than determined to have it her way, only her way had enough implications as it was, and Edward wasn't about to let the shape-shifters' ominous threats augment the size of the pile of problems that her decision was bound to bring. It wasn't his family's safety that truly concerned him – perhaps the collateral damage was something to think about, but for the most part the group could fend for itself. No, graver than that would be the amount of casualties on _their _front.

Everyone had to live. Stay alive, at least. That was all he could strive for. That was all he had to do – plant the bond, allow it to grow and feed it.

And hope, of course, that it'd last for as long as an olive tree lived.

The thought that he would probably still be here to see the olive tree die was rather nauseating, and it was an actual olive tree that he imagined, knowing that they could last for more than a thousand years. It wasn't the bond; that would be renovated, perhaps when these wolves ceased to be. Because these wolves _would_ cease to be. Edward saw their future sprawled out on a grand field of weeds, away from civilization, and he saw as portion by portion the field withdrew, as humans built more parking lots (_because what else could they spend their money on?)_, and as bit by bit the field met its end. Soil would become concrete, and the next weeds would sprout when they found the space to do so, but these wouldn't be the same wild plants.

In the end both weeds and werewolves were living beings, and this was their natural order – they were born, they aged, and then they died.

Even olive trees went to olive-tree-heaven at some point, saved by the prayers of Mediterraneans and their profits from gastronomic tourism.

Edward returned from his musings with a barely audible whimper, the fireball in his throat edging too close to his vocal cords. He could barely understand the climate that surrounded him, sensing only through a red haze that resentment and antagonism had become so concentrated that they were about to reach their saturation point and fall upon all the people in the area visibly. Everything seemed to be decreasing the distance between bearable and unbearable. He'd acquired the ability to zone in on something other than pain throughout a lifetime of dreadful cacophonies and agonizing bloodlust. Pick metaphysics, philosophy, translate French to Gaulish, make capitalist jokes – psychological studies showed that self-hypnosis could numb the pain. Humans were lucky. Edward couldn't keep it going for too long; his oversensitive brain had too many features, and at the very best he could only lessen the efficiency of some of them, something that required self-control, which _required_ a reasonable state of mind.

Not _this. _This hindered self-control. This put pressure on the levers, threatened to break them and erase the possibility of controlling the surplus of capacities. And if he was too far gone he couldn't do anything about it; everything'd heat up, and the thermostat would melt, with the heat of the werewolves' proximity, the heat of their thoughts and the heat of _excess _– a disharmony of heartbeats, inhales, exhales, vocal cords trembling, air swooshing with movements, leaves warring with the wind, water streaming miles away, insect claws scratching the undergrowth. A disagreement in tunes, voices shouting into his head without permission, and behind it all the long, merciless rub of a bow's hank of horsehair against the stretched strings of a violin. _It's the growing tension again_, more ominous than before. The string would break, too. And within him, with the temperature seemingly increasing – the illusion was a result of the helplessness swelling in his chest, causing his lungs to stop altogether and making him feel _wrong, _like he was suffocating, even if vampires didn't need to breathe – and the insupportable discomfort in his leg, the lack of consistency down there, the seismic waves of the horrible pain… Within him, the instinct to flee scratched desperately at his bones, more than an answer to the presence of a natural enemy, a consequence of being in such a vulnerable position.

There were five of them. Five. Caging him in. The machinery was about to go haywire. Soon Edward wouldn't be able to distinguish friend from foe. As it was, the feeling that he was in serious danger was heavy and relentless, and it was expanding quickly. It was getting more and more difficult to suppress the growling animal in him, the cornered, threatened, restless animal, which after freed would not be able to narrate its actions.

This was it. The semblance of a soul slipping from his grasp.

"He's obviously not fine."

_Seth_. Not Seth. Or anyone else for that matter. He didn't know; he couldn't possibly know what he'd do. He had to leave. He couldn't hold on for much longer.

"Really, Sherlock?"

"Shut the hell up, Jake! If there's anyone who should keep quiet right now it's you."

Edward rolled over. The pain in his leg increased tenfold, and he actually thought for less than a second, managing to pick that one phrase amongst the torrent of images and sounds colliding and dispersing in a weak imitation of the creation of the universe, that the fractured piece would pierce through his skin. His other leg kicked at the ground, trying to support and elevate the whole weight of his body, but his injured leg hurt so, so much, and he even tried to leap in one single movement, but everything was so fast, not even _he _was able to predict that. Everything was fading, he didn't really know what he was doing, and so right after he managed to move with one foot, the other tried to do the same.

The scratching hadn't stopped. The scratching had _demanded _that he run.

And the agony was blinding. It went past the limits, robbed him of his senses, made everything come to a halt.

Edward welcomed the darkness.

**()**

"Should I ask what happened?"

Sue Clearwater had the habit of weakly pretending that she wasn't interested in the answers to the questions she posed. The truth was that there was always an authoritative tone under her strong contralto voice, and so it was impossible to think that she wasn't expecting a decent reply. Leah figured it was a mom-thing. The fake nonchalance worked to put her at ease. Not that she felt uneasy – indeed, the vision of the redheaded bloodsucker puncturing the earth with his trembling white fingers, his features contorted in a myriad of variations of discomfort, had caused her hairs to stand as tall as her mother always did, but she definitely couldn't say that she felt anywhere near as bothered as her brother felt.

Seth was locked up in his room. The silence allowed Leah to hear with perfect clarity the falling of water drops onto the stainless surface of the sink. Now she felt uneasy. The house hadn't been this silent since her father's death.

"Sam sent us home." She shrugged. "He left it up to Jake to clean up the mess he made."

More than ever Leah thought that her loyalty to her pack members depended on the shape of the moon. She more or less enjoyed seeing the indignant look on Jacob's face when Sam ordered him to stay after telling the rest of the pack to leave, thinking that it served him right, even if she wasn't particularly fond of the Cullens. But, she mused, either due to Seth's affinity with them or her own individualism, she wasn't as hostile as the others as far as the Cold Ones were concerned. Or maybe she was hostile to just about anyone and didn't give a damn whom she disliked more.

Sue dropped the little square pieces of the tomato she'd been dicing into a bowl without shifting the focus of her dark gaze.

"And what did Jake do?" she asked.

Leah scratched her elbow. "You mean, what did Jake do to make Seth look like he's got a rotten plum in his mouth? Because I'm not sure who really messed up here," she said. "A Cold One was hunting in our territory, near the border. I think we could've all done fine without external help, but for some reason… You know Edward Cullen?"

"Who?"

"The mind-reader."

"I'm not sure…"

Leah opted to refer to a moment when her mom had actually seen the leech.

"The one who helped Jacob when he broke his ribs." _Well, that's ironic, _she thought.

"The blonde doctor?"

"His son."

"Oh." Sue lifted an eyebrow. "What about him?"

"He was also hunting – or he was about to hunt – near the area and must have noticed that we were in a bit of a predicament." Leah spoke hesitantly – she wasn't certain why the redhead hadn't simply ignored them. Not only wasn't it any of his business, but Leah had also been sure that she'd be able to catch the unknown vampire. It was true that the chase had been taking longer than usual, but they'd all felt confident that they'd succeed. "So he convinced Sam that he could help… There was no need, you know. I _had _him. But Sam just went along with it. It was all pretty fast."

The knife in her mother's hand stopped for a couple of seconds.

"Sam isn't supposed to–"

"Well, yeah, that all sounds incontestable, but the truth is that when Jacob got hurt the Cullens had to intervene and when the other redhead was after Isabella Swan we stepped into their territory in wolf form, so I don't think the treaty actually has any effect, to be honest."

"Leah!" Sue's voice was firm, but Leah had to contain the urge to roll her eyes. She scratched her elbow once more in an absent manner and realized suddenly that she'd expressed an _opinion_. And it wasn't related to Sam or Emily or Jake's fascination with the leech-lover. It was simultaneously spontaneous and consistent, despite its contradictory nature. More importantly – since she was used to expressing contradictory opinions –, it was right. This time it wasn't a matter of personal feelings – she looked at it from a neutral standpoint and was almost sure that she was right.

"Why don't you just report it to the Council? I think that'd be a good reason to expel me from the tribe."

Leah stood up in time with the downfall of her reasonable mood. _If only… _It was never her wish to be involved in such a mess. Losing Sam to something that he had no control over was hard enough, and now she and her brother were also immersed in this poor excuse of a life and neither of them had any control over it. For a moment she wished that her mother could take her suggestion seriously.

"Sit down. I want to hear what happened."

Leah obeyed, albeit reluctantly. The lump in her throat blocked any words that might have had the chance to escape. Her father wouldn't have this effect on her; his voice wouldn't have moved her limbs like this. It was true what most of the pack said – her mother was more of a wolf than Leah could ever hope to be. And as much as she tried to convince herself that it didn't bother her, the truth was that it _really did. _Life as the only female wolf in the pack was hard, but this was where she'd grown to feel comfortable, where she belonged. Her blood ran through her veins alongside the promise to protect her tribe from harm, and that was something to be proud of. She wanted to be good at this at least.

She bit the inside of her cheek. "So, as I was saying, it all happened very rapidly. Somehow the Cullen guy managed to outrun us, so maybe Sam wasn't wrong to have accepted his help. The bloodsucker's fast."

"Faster than you?" Sue asked teasingly, and the tension that'd been building up in the small kitchen just seconds before dissipated suddenly.

Leah squirmed in her chair. "Almost…" she lied. "Anyway, I think everyone was too caught up in the chase to really give it any thought. But Jacob was a bit ahead of us, and Cullen was just about to whip past him… Basically, he thought it'd be a good idea to distract the leech with images of the Swan girl and take the chance to break his leg in the meantime."

The audible crack that'd echoed in everyone's heads reverberated through her own now. She evoked the image of the fallen Cold One and the horror shining off his onyx-hued eyes. When she'd arrived, the redhead was already trying to conceal the pain that he was undergoing, and Leah had swallowed quietly upon seeing the state in which his leg had been left. Jacob had honed his offensive skills just for this particular leech. Leah hadn't been able to contain her own anger in the middle of it all, after Jacob's sarcastic remark. It was one thing to neglect the vampire's suffering, but it was another thing altogether to pretty much mock her brother for caring. But the actual scene was overall incommodious and spine-chilling, and that, too, had added up to her irritation. She couldn't stand seeing Seth in such distress – in fact, she might have cried more during Harry Clearwater's funeral because of her brother's sorrow than because of the fact that her father was lying in a coffin – and, damnit, it hadn't been that long ago that Jacob had received aid from that same person lying on the ground, who began to look so restless at some point that even Leah had resisted the urge to do something about it.

"Your brother is too thoughtful," Sue said quietly after a long while.

Her daughter frowned, wondering when thoughtfulness had become an inconvenient trait.

**()**

The scent of freshly wet vegetation intensified as the sky breathed down onto the surface of the planet the metallic smell of ozone, heralding the fall of more rain, as if the droplets of water that hung off the pine needles above were trying to welcome their relatives. Sam refrained from inhaling too deeply; his nostrils were inimical to the odor of cheap scented-bleach, and he was too close to its source. The weight of Edward's upper body against his own was unsurprisingly substantial – he was heavier than a human with a similar physique, but the added pounds resided in his diamond-hard skin, which was thinner than it seemed.

His brown gaze drifted along the sharp angles made by the vampire's leg, and he winced inwardly. The firm posture couldn't be lost in front of _him_. Jacob. He wanted him to stay, but the reason for giving him such an order was still unknown. His thoughts were scattered over a path that led to nowhere. He looked down at the face of the mind-reader, and his throat tightened around the unfamiliarity of the image. The red locks straying from the white forehead, more disheveled than normal. The parted lips and the relaxed eyebrows. Weren't it for the stillness of his chest, he'd look like he was sleeping.

Vaguely, Sam associated the tightness of his throat with the fact that he'd never seen a dead vampire. One that wasn't torn to pieces, that is.

It followed that he was probably in deep shit.

He heard his pack mates running towards the area nearer the beach from a far distance.

"Call Carlisle Cullen," he said in a low voice.

"Why?" Jacob's tone was defiant, and Sam uncovered the _x _in the equation, the reason why he'd ordered him to stay. The hand holding Edward's side curled into a fist.

"Jacob," he said more loudly. "Do as I say."

"Sam, he broke the treaty!"

"When you become the Alpha you can make your own decisions. But _I _am the Alpha here, and when I give someone permission to step onto our lands, it is implied that none of you will attack that person. Do you understand?"

His voice was strong and unyielding, underlining his position in the pack. He sounded as if he were quoting a law written in stone. The anger, the indignity, the danger that Jacob's mistake could bring… He wasn't supposed to disrespect his orders to begin with, but the possible consequences of what he'd done stirred one of Sam's most recent fears. The pack's volatility wasn't easy to control, and lately it seemed to him as if they were even more agitated than usual. They all spoke of a great threat, of monsters, when it came to the Cullens, and at the same time they trusted them to accept something like _this – _Sam eyed the broken leg, twisted in a dreadful manner –, as if their harmlessness swam at the bottom of a well of patience. Even Sam struggled to understand his pack's logic.

Right now he had a defenseless vampire in his arms – he could do whatever the hell he wanted to him, and tearing him limb from limb seemed at the same time like the rightest and most wrong thing to do.

"You know what? Go," he commanded. Jacob had been struck dumb by his outburst, but the snarky reply was probably waiting to roll off the tip of his tongue, and Sam felt it saturating the air as much as the smell before rain did. The irritating itch under his skin grew more difficult to ignore in tempo with the densification of the mantle of clouds above their heads. Sam thought that if he had to be in Jacob's presence a moment longer he'd burst out of his skin. He couldn't do it now, not when he still had the broken body of a Cullen against his heaving chest. Not while he was still undecided about what to do with it.

"What are you gonna do?"

"Last time I checked you didn't care," he snapped. "Now go!"

Jacob shrugged his broad shoulders and took off his cutoffs once again, before morphing into wolf form and sprinting away. Sam regretted his decision momentarily: Jacob should've been the one to call the blonde doctor; he should've been the one to take Edward Cullen home, to clean up the mess he'd made. He should've been the one in his place, staring hopelessly around, trying to decide what to do, considering the pros and the cons and the future of a pack that was so out of order that even their leader felt lost.

But he'd said it himself – he was the Alpha. He was the leader. The role of a leader was to make decisions, and the role of one who was not a leader was to complain.

He looked back to the boy in his arms. A boy – Sam didn't think he could be older than many of his pack mates in physical years. Edward Cullen was not the leader of their coven, but he, too, made decisions, or at least suggestions, and Sam thought that that was what gave consistency to the coven. He was an interpreter, a spokesperson, a radar.

And now the radar was broken. Sam couldn't yet come up with a way to explain how that had happened to the vampire's family.

He slipped his other arm under the vampire's knees, cringing freely when his skin came in contact with the ripped fabric of his jeans, and stood up carefully so as not to jostle the slender body. Edward's arm went back and forth like a pendulum as he walked towards the intangible border. A thunderclap interrupted his train of thought, meeting the expectation that had been present in Sam's subconscious, and the rain began to pour, wetting them from head to toe.


End file.
